Poachers Leaving Elephant Orphans

60 Minutes: Special Elephant Orphanage Cares For Poachers' Youngest Victims

(CBS)  Just about the best people you've ever met are the gentle men who work at the orphanage. Keepers, they're called, and they have extraordinary jobs. There's one keeper per elephant. He'll spend 24 hours a day with his charge, seven days a week. A keeper feeds his elephant every three hours, day and night, just like mom would. He keeps his elephant warm, not like mom would, but with a blanket. And when it's sleep time, he beds down right next to his elephant. If he leaves, if ever so briefly, the baby wakes up and broadcasts his displeasure.

The keepers are rotated now and then so that no elephant gets too terribly attached to any one of them. At dawn, the elephants are taken from their dorms out to the bush. They hang out for awhile, play some games; soccer is a favorite.

They days are pretty much the same there, but on Fridays the orphanage becomes a spa, when the keepers give the elephants a coconut oil massage.

"We can't do exactly what the mother can do but we can do something close to that," explained Edwin Lusichi, the head of the keepers. He is the chief elephant man.

"This one here is Lualeni. Lualeni is the oldest female we have, 16 months as well. The tiny one here is Makena," he told Simon. "Always want to be close with Lualeni."

"Yes. Well, they always want to be close to each other and to you, don't they? I'm afraid this interview with Edwin is getting rudely interrupted," Simon remarked.

"Yes," Lusichi replied.

"But there's really not that much to do. They may be little, they may be orphans, but trust me... they're not as little as they look. In fact, I feel like I'm in an elephant sandwich," Simon commented, standing between two elephants.

Perhaps the problem was Simon and the elephants had not been properly introduced. There's a protocol to meeting an elephant: he will offer up his trunk and he expects you to blow in it. That way, he will remember your scent forever. You will never be strangers again.

The orphanage gets distress calls from all over Kenya, from all over East Africa, that a baby elephant is on his own, often because his mother has been killed by a poacher. It is then a matter of great urgency. An orphaned elephant can only survive a few days without its mother. The baby elephant is loaded on to a plane and flown back to Daphne Sheldrick's orphanage, where he'll stay until he's strong enough to go back into the bush.

[lunacapra]

It seems to me that radical solutions may be necessary to protect the elephants being slaughtered for their ivory. My suggestion is to have the appropriate foundation find the herds that are at risk, sedate the elephants, remove the ivory tusks and immediately replace them with a manmade orthotic which will maintain the elephant's ability to use the tusks as they would the ivory tusks. With the ivory removed from the equation, the poacher is out of business and the adult elephants can go on with their lives. The acquired ivory can then be sold to support the perpetuation of this and other missions.

the BBC London did a long series on this Orphanage last year showing the day to day life of the Elephants over a year or so. Well worth watching if you can but not good news. Try the BBC iplayer

[mcgh]

I'm 45 y/o and I watch 60minutes but I am getting frustrated with the "old fashion" thinking the show has! People want to help, they just don't know how to help! Help us help the elephants...give us a website...give us a letter on your website to send in opposition to the sale of ivory. Update your show so people can get involved!!! How old are the people running this show???? Get someone in there who can bring the show up to date!!! I'm tired of watching you tell the stories and then leave us with no way to help.
You do all the research on the show, you have to know how we can help...TELL US!!!!

[tuxcats]

Hi, Time and time again I have emailed 60 Minutes and other such news programs to PLEASE include a tag at the end of such pieces to refer people to the website for the organization that they have spotlighted. So many people are not aware of these organizations and once they have watched such a program they are moved so by what is being done to help these animals that they want to help and like last nights program there was no tag saying this is how you can help Dame Daphne help the orphans by mentioning their website.

http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org

I can speak from personal experience. I was lucky enough to visit the orphanage in 2004. I had read about it and made sure when I went on my East African safari to arrange to be taken there to see for myself the wonderful work they do. Anyone can schedule a visit, watch the baby ele's frolick in the mud, bump into you as they walk by, blow into their trunks. It is an amazing place doing such difficult work saving these babies with such loving care. You just want to hug them all and tell them it will be OK with all these wonderful keepers taking care of them as if they were their children.

I now "foster" a baby ele and you can as well. What a wonderful gift it makes for any child or adult with a love for these magnificent creatures. You get monthly orphan updates on how your and other orphaned baby eles are doing. It's better than any soap opera all the antics that go on between the babies and who likes to hang out with who and who causes trouble. It's just like reading about kids at preschool. They have such human like traits. What a great lesson for children to get a foster ele as a gift to be able to read about their foster baby every month. It's one way I keep my African experiences alive by reading about these guys along with the other things I'm connected to there.

Dame Daphne was there when I visited so I personally thanked her for her wonderful work. These ele's are her life. And yes she really does wear the little floral dresses. That was not "dress up" for the cameras :)

60 Minutes----please take note of all the comments asking how they can help and consider giving people this info at the end of segments like these. You can really help make a difference by giving people the info how to help. They are so overwhelmed with babies right now and need every bit of money they can raise. Just think if everyone watching gave a few dollars how much it would help!!!!!!!!

We also need to put pressure on to make the selling of Ivory illegal around the world. We have done so before. I'm not sure how/why it changed.

Every single one of us can make a difference, however small. It takes just one person to raise their voice, and another, and another. Pretty soon it's a massive effort stared from just one voice.

"You must be the change you want to see in the world" -------Mahatma Gandhi-----

Everyone should sponsor a baby ele.......!!!!!!!

[no_nonesense]

I saw this story the first time CBS ran it, and it is worthy of repeating. It's the kind of story involving animals , in the hands of humans, that should be told and retold.

Regardless, it does not mitigate or soften the horrors of your previous week's serving of horrendous animal cruelty by torture and methodical killing of bulls at the hands of Draconian macabre killers who, through tradition, can call themselves "bull fighters." BULL! It's animal torture, pure and simple.

I'm still seething about it, and, like the elephant, I won't forget!

[ShaoNT]

60 Minutes please read this:

I can help! I suggest to show this piece in school all over China and Japan where the ivory is in demand. Children are most innocent and full of sympathy. If they learn how the baby elephans become orphans because their parents and grandparents are paying a high price to buy their ivory, they will help educate their parents and grandparents to stop this demand. In China at least, the "one-child policy" has made the children a very powerful force influencing their parents. When my son was in grade school in China, he learned how the use of paper kills trees and, he refused to write me holiday cards because he wanted to save trees.

To show this piece in school also will make sure that the next generation of Chinese and Japanese will not want to use ivory.

I can help translate the piece into Chinese and make connections to show it in China. So please contact me. Only by exhuasting the deman will we make a difference in stopping the killing of baby elephans.

[ctebben]

What a sad story about the poached elefants. What can we do to get the laws turned aroung re: legal selling of tusks?
How can I help this amazing orphanage?

[ram19491]

www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ This is a address to find out more about the seldrick trust. Thank you for this wonderful story among so many sad ones. ram19491

[animal-lover]

i am 15, from Wisconson, & i would like to know more about saving these great animals & how to contact this amazing woman.

[Ollind]

60 minutes please let the world know how we can all help to stop this abuse. How can we help?.